“Why is it that looking at old photos, the older they are, the younger you look?” laughs Janis Sanders when talking about creating new work. The relationship between painting and photography is tight—the more unique the artwork, the older the artist, and the more experience and skill we see come through in paint.
“The common denominator and unifying element of the works in this show are that each painting stands on its own due to the vastness of the number of new pieces I created for this significant event,” says Sanders. “In beginning a new painting, I frequently glimpse at a similar previous work for a quick slice of reference, an area of color I liked, or maybe a particular area of emphasis. But, with all good intentions, the new and young risk slipping quickly into the old—the highwire trembles.”
From the start, Sanders very deliberately decided not to look back, not to look back at any paintings created, but for a determination that nothing is being repeated, at most the image at hand to be nuanced into a new view, a slightly different perspective from its now mere hours older cousin.
“There is nothing to lose when you are living in the moment,” says Sanders. “I am liberated to put my best self, all of myself, into the path and story told in each new painting. It is like a story of the written word expressed in paint, in two-dimensional and near three-dimensional forms.”
So the intent was to stay in the moment, paint in the now, not in what he liked yesterday, to paint each new work as new as if he had never painted any other painting before this one.
The Janis H. Sanders Solo Summer Show is at The Gallery at the Grand at Maine Art Hill, 1 Chase Hill Rd. The show runs through Thursday, September 29, and is open daily from 10 AM to 5 PM. FMI call 207-967-2803. The show can be viewed online at www.maine-art.com/shows.
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